The conventional method of provisioning communication services is slow and labor-intensive. First, disseminating the information regarding available communication services to customers is costly and difficult. In many cases, customers are not aware of some of the services which are available and could be quite useful to them. Second, in general, subscribing to or modifying communication services requires a telephone call to a customer representative. For example, if a customer wishes to request Call Waiting service, the customer makes a telephone call to a service representative, who creates a service order. The information on the service order is entered into a service management system, which in turn transfers messages to the appropriate telephone network elements. The information on the service order is also entered into a billing system. In general, the conventional method takes a couple of days before the services that the customer has requested or modified can be effectuated. Furthermore, the manual processing involved is costly and the process of entering the information provided by the customer to the service representative into appropriate systems increases the delay and the likelihood of introducing errors into the system.
There also exist conventional methods that allow a customer to change the customer's communication services using a touch-tone telephone or the Internet. However, these methods also result in a service order, which requires intermediaries to enter appropriate data into the telephone network elements and the billing system. Accordingly, these conventional methods fail to effectuate in real-time the customer's request to change his communication services.
In addition, the conventional methods that allow a customer to review the status of his communication services via the Internet provide only information that is stored in a database associated with the service provider's computer server. The conventional methods do not provide parameters associated with certain services which are stored in a database of the switch that is associated with the customer's subscriber line. Accordingly, the information that the customer can view using the conventional methods does not include the parameters associated with certain communication services.
The conventional methods for effectuating a customer's request to modify his communication services are slow and costly. The conventional methods for allowing the customer to view his communication services are inadequate. Thus, there is a need for a system and method for effectuating in real-time subscriptions to or modifications of communication services, as well as allowing the customer to view the status and parameters of his communication services.